


Between Sand and Sky

by imperfectkreis



Series: Somewhere Between [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 16:38:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3141392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-slashish conversation between the two in the Hissing Wastes. Harding hopes one day her life will mean something. Sera wants it to mean something right now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Sand and Sky

Harding thinks this is all pretty much horseshit. But she also thinks that the Inquisition is the best damn way of combating this horseshit so she joined up happily. No way is she sitting at home waiting for this to blow over, because it’s not going to blow over. She wants to be where the fixers are, the people who matter. Damn, she wants to be a person who matters.

That being said, they’re camped in the Hissing Wastes and she’d rather be anywhere but here. Maybe even back on the Hinterlands farm that used to be her whole world. The fire is roaring but still, the night seems to stretch on forever. She’s a surfacer, through and through and out here in the Wastes the sky seems too close to the ground, like it’s going to crush her. Varric said the same, like it’s being in a tomb but it’s everywhere. Miles and miles of it.

The Inquisitor and the Seeker talk by the fire. They’re always talking about something, but it’s not always on the best of terms. While they chat, the Inquisitor paints her nails and the Seeker says that it’s frivolous. The Inquisitor barks something about Cassandra ‘giving herself two black eyes every morning.’ They both laugh at that and the mood changes. 

It’s another three days before the scouting group is to head back to Skyhold for their next assignment. In the meantime, Harding has volunteered to go with the Inquisitor to close one of the nearby rifts. She’s not the absolute best at combat, but she can hold her own and there’s little danger for archers. As long as she hangs back and doesn’t draw too much attention to herself, she won’t be a liability. Maybe if the heat is on her, she can hide behind Dorian. What a view.

“Boo!” Sera falls out of stealth with little grace right into Harding’s lap. Her blonde bangs are in her eyes and she’s giggling uncontrollably. Laughs herself right out of Harding’s lap and onto the sand. The grains stick to her face and Harding has to stop herself from reaching out to rub it away. Can’t encourage the elf like that.

“Er, do you need anything?”

“Naw,” Sera sits cross-legged on the sand at Harding’s feet. Even though the dwarf is seated on a log, Sera’s head a is good inch or two higher. “Just thinking about bees.”

“Of course, bees.”

“They’re all poke, poke, poke! And always so little, and angry.”

“That they are,” Harding drawls.

Sera is like this. They all know this. Harding is pretty sure people in higher positions than her in the Inquisition have pointed out the elf is batty. If the Inquisitor hasn’t listened to them, she won’t listen to Harding either. 

“You’re little too. Little and red but not so angry. Leilana is not little, also red, also angry.”

Harding couldn’t claim to know the Spymaster well. Her chain of command went up to Commander Cullen. 

“Sure, Sera, sure.”

“I asked to work with you tomorrow,” Sera grabs fistfuls of sand and lets it run between her fingers and into her lap. Some of it is still stuck to her cheeks. “But Lady Trevelyan said no no, I’ve got to go with the grumpy ones. I ‘ate the grumpy ones.”

“Er, the ‘grumpy ones?’” she knew better than to engage, but maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to pass the time with the nutter. Sara could be fun, when she wasn’t being vindictive. 

“You know, Grandpa and other Grandpa. Solas and Warden Blackwall. And...wait wasn’t there supposed to be a fourth? Anyway, we’re supposed to be collecting dwarven dolls and plates and shite.”

“Well, that’s important. Even with our contacts, the Inquisition has to remain self-sufficient with requisitions. These are dangerous times and supply lines are tenuous.” 

“Yeah,” she bites her lip and finally starts rubbing the sand away from her face. She’s not very good at it though and mostly just moves it around to new places on her nose and forehead. “I wanted to go with the Inquisitor and you, that’s all. And Solas gives me the creeps. Like ‘em less than bees.”

Harding shrugs, she was under the impression Sera liked bees. “Humans just expect you two to be similar, and you’re not.”

“They do the same to you? And, I don’t know, you and other dwarves? Like Varric?”

Truth be told, if anyone were to compare her to Varric, she’d be awfully flattered. He’s successful and well-respected. Wherever they go that actually has people and is not just a Maker-forsaken desolate wasteland, people clamor for his autograph and ask after his next work. Beyond that, he cares, deeply, for his friends. That much is clear. So yeah, if people want to compare her and Varric, that would be just fine with her.

“Not really. Different histories, you know?”

“Not really. Don’t know the history, only the present. And the present is shite.”

No arguing that.

The two sit in silence for a long time. Harding looks at the endless, oppressive sky and tries not to think about how Sera is looking at her. 

Behind them the Inquisitor and the Seeker are still talking. Out here in the field they’re joined at the hip. At Skyhold they keep their distance. There’s a story there. Varric would write it well, if he knows it. Harding wonders if one day she’ll have an impressive title. ‘The Scout.’ She likes the way it sounds, not just a scout, but ‘the.’

She’s still sitting upright, but Sera’s eyes are closed. Her head lolls to one side and it looks as if she may be drooling. Quiet like this, she almost seems normal. Though, after what has happened to the world, Harding isn’t entirely sure she’s got the best handle on normal. 

It’s time to get to bed and she shakes Sera at the shoulder. The blonde wakes with a start and grabs onto Harding’s wrist. 

“Wait,” her voice sounds very small in the expanse of the desert, like what she’s about to say is secret, and important. “When this is all over, you won’t be ashamed that you were my friend, yeah?”

That takes Harding a moment to process. She doesn’t know if she’d consider herself and Sera to be friends now. They’ve drank in the same taverns, slept in the same tent. They’ve been friendly, but she hardly knows the girl.

“It’s just, Lady Trevelyan is nice and all. Sort of has a stick up her arse but not in the noble-lady sort of way, just in the normal person way. But she’s real important yeah? She’s the Inquisitor. And she’s nice to me now, but when she doesn’t need me to fill some demon shite full of arrows, she’ll forget me. I know it.”

Harding’s good enough at reading people that she knows there’s something else to this conversation, but she’s not that good to know what it is she’s missing. But in the meantime Sera looks so sad, pale in the moonlight and sand, that Harding has to say something. 

“Yeah, Sera, I won’t be ashamed that you were my friend.”

Sera smiles on one side of her mouth and it doesn’t matter so much if Harding is telling the truth. Honestly, she doesn’t know the answer to Sera’s question. But if these little fudges of the truth will get them through this mess, who is she to judge?

There’s sand on Sera’s lips and Harding thinks of other transgressions she might choose to make on other nights like this.


End file.
